Madonna film hit 'Desperately Seeking Susan' to become West End musical

The production will feature hit songs by legendary punk rock band Blondie and Debbie Harry, rock's original blonde pin-up, has also penned a new song for the production.

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Emma Williams, 24, who was meant to share the role of Maria with reality TV show winner Connie Fisher in The Sound Of Music but dropped out, has landed the role of Susan, played by Madonna in her movie debut.

Kelly Price, who recently appeared in the West End production of Guys and Dolls, will play Roberta Glass, the bored suburban New Jersey housewife who becomes fascinated with Susan. The rights for the musical, were snapped up from film giant MGM.

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Blondie hits interwoven into the show will include Heart of Glass, Atomic, One Way or Another, Dreaming, and The Tide is High. The icon, 62, who inspired a generation of female singers including Madonna, has also written a new song, Moment of Truth, "based on an R&B idea".

She said of the decision to collaborate on the musical: "The story just works with the lyrics. I thought it was a good idea, really smart.

"I would love it to come to Broadway. Hopefully it will be a huge success.

"It's a live show so it is going to be different to the film, probably more light-hearted."

The movie, which cost less than £3 million to make, helped make a huge star out of Madonna a year after she released her first single, Holiday.

She wore her own clothes for the part and the skirts over leggings, lacy gloves, rubber bracelets, giant hair bows and sunglasses, became huge in the Eighties. Mark Rubinstein, one of the producers of the musical, said: "It's going to be all Blondie songs.

"It sets the world before Madonna, when there was Debbie Harry and Blondie. She's from that world and that time. Moment of Truth (the new song) is different."

Susan Gallin, the originating producer, said: "It will be very close to the movie.

"We would like to have Madonna come to see the opening night. It was her break-out movie. She was wonderful in it. Interesting, quirky and fabulous."

Williams, 24, playing Susan didn't see the film when it came out as she was too young. She said Susan would be a "cross between Madonna and Debbie Harry," with influences from Courtney Love, adding of Harry: "She's the epitome of cool. She's timeless and effortless."

Kelly, 25, from Wigan but now living in London, steps into the shoes of Rosanna Arquette, who won a Bafta for the movie role.

She said: "I've only seen the film once, before the audition last year, and I probably won't see it again because I don't want to copy it.

"All the fashion from Desperately Seeking Susan is just coming back. I don't know what Roberta will end up wearing. It could be anything."

The musical is written and conceived by US writer, director and actor Peter Michael Marino, whose other writing projects include Hollywood Nurses, an homage to lesbian pulp novels of the 1950s.

The production will open at London's Novello Theatre on October 12.